Lisbon, Nov.7 (Lusa) – Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference, helped launch Portuguese Artificial Intelligence startups DefinedCrowd and Unbabel, the CEOs of these companies told Lusa on Wednesday.
DefinedCrowd, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Seattle, with offices in Lisbon and Tokyo, collects and processes data for AI systems and machine learning.
In July last year, the company – which already has 80 members of staff - announced a new round of financing worth $12 million (€10.5 million.) Daniela Braga, head of the company, said that Web Summit had played an important role in helping launch the company.
DefinedCrowd estimates revenue of between €4 million and €7 million this year after revenue amounting to €1 million last year.
Unbabel is also undergoing a phase of consolidation. The company offers translations in 28 languages through artificial intelligence and is focused on customer support services.
This year, the company, which is headquartered in Lisbon and has offices in San Francisco and London, celebrates 5 years since it was funded and Vasco Pedro, the CEO of Unbabel, also said Web Summit had been “very useful” for the business.
“We have the whole world living her for a week, from clients, investors, journalists, people who can amplify our message and consume our service,” he told Lusa.
Unabbel raised $23 million (around €20 million) at the start of this year through cohesion funding.
Pedro said Web Summit had been an opportunity to meet investors the company had already held talks with, and that the event helped “accelerate the process.”
Unbabel now has 150 employees and 40% of its staff are foreign. “Web Summit gave Lisbon visibility and gave the idea that it is easy to work in Lisbon,” Pedro said.
The company expects revenue to amount to €10 million in the first four months of 2019.
Web Summit kicked off on Monday and is taking place for the third time in Lisbon.
Last year's Web Summit drew some 60,000 people from 170 countries, including 1,200 speakers, representatives of 2,000 startups, 1,400 investors and 2,500 journalists.
ANE/MWYP /ADB.
Lusa